Hi John I have had to take some time off - Ii have a pretty serious family emergency, but don't know about the other ALAC members commitments - but thanks for the offer, and I hope that we get it in on time. I didn't have any major comments to the content of the last draft, but just some language ones so in the interest of time I will leave them out. Jacqueline -----Original Message----- From: John L [mailto:johnl@iecc.com] Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 08:53 To: Vittorio Bertola Cc: At-Large Worldwide Subject: Re: [At-Large] ALAC submission to the RAA consultation If the current committee members are overcommitted, I have some available time today and tomorrow to work on it. Friendly threat: I'll edit it to include the exigous pile of comments to date along with other changes that I think are advisable. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly. _______________________________________________ ALAC mailing list ALAC@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org At-Large Official Site: http://www.alac.icann.org ALAC Independent: http://www.icannalac.org No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.485 / Virus Database: 269.13.15/1002 - Release Date: 9/11/2007 17:46 No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.485 / Virus Database: 269.13.15/1002 - Release Date: 9/11/2007 17:46

At the moment I am in the middle of a research project in New Jersey, without much time. I can't go through the document line-by-line to offer specific critiques, but if it's of use I can offer a very general statement that can be considered representative of my organization, Consumers Union (nine million consumers in the U.S. and Canada, etc.) It's similar to what I said on a panel discussion about this topic with Vittorio in San Juan, some of which I have been quoted saying by the trade press (I can find the reference if you want it). This may not be useful at all, oversimplistic and with inappropriate legalese, but if you want to quote it in an appendix as being representative of a large body of consumers, please feel free: The current agreement contains little to no provisions for accountability. ICANN in San Juan presented six options for moving forward. Each of those options contained some means of addressing this issue. The language of those options made clear ICANN appears to have no authority to enforce contracts. Therefore, on behalf of consumers: * The contents of any audits of registrar conduct must be made public and this must be written into the contract. Registrars who don't agree don't get accredited. ICANN said they were working on this but it needs to be on paper and in contracts to prevent needless lawsuits. * ICANN needs to be accorded the authority through the new agreements and contracts to be able to enforce contract provisions. Termination of contracts, suspension of accreditization, and monetary fines are possible remedies. * Performance standards, i.e., a consumer bill of rights, needs to be drafted to give consumers a means of measurement of performance, and registrars a set of benchmarks to aspire to. These apparently exist in some form but few know about them and fewer still pay attention to them. A third party needs to be involved in drafting these guidelines and needs to get input from the user community (not registrars, but registrants and consumers) as to what their expectations are and what they believe is fair, and from registrars as to what is practical. * Registrars need to bear the cost of compliance with guidelines generally agreed to by the registrar community, not registrants or consumers. ________________________________ From: alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org on behalf of Vittorio Bertola Sent: Thu 9/13/2007 8:18 AM To: John L Cc: At-Large Worldwide Subject: Re: [At-Large] ALAC submission to the RAA consultation John L ha scritto:

If the current committee members are overcommitted, I have some available time today and tomorrow to work on it.

Friendly threat: I'll edit it to include the exigous pile of comments to date along with other changes that I think are advisable.

I'm ok if you want to do it, or I can do it next week (but it could be too late), but that wouldn't solve my problem, which was that there has been no input to this policy discussion by any ALAC member yet, and while I worked until now on the assumption that what I was doing reflected the shared thinking of the Committee, I am not that sure of the assumption now, and wouldn't want to waste time. Also, it can't be past ALAC members like you and me doing the substantial work forever. The current officers and members should not be afraid, and start taking over policy work right now. Regards, -- vb. Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu <-------- --------> finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/ <-------- _______________________________________________ ALAC mailing list ALAC@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org At-Large Official Site: http://www.alac.icann.org ALAC Independent: http://www.icannalac.org *** Scanned

I thought the NARALO put something in or was working toward doing so. I don't know if this is the same discussion, please clarify.

I don't recall seeing it, if so. R's, John